You don’t know me.
You don’t know what I’ve been through.
You see a name.
You see a man who walks, who speaks, who perhaps even smiles.
But you don’t know me.
Not truly.
You don’t know what I’ve been through.
What I carry behind every breath.
What echoes in my silence.
I have lost more than most can imagine—
My siblings, torn from life’s embrace,
each one a heartbeat, a memory, a bond that time cannot erase.
Their absence clings like smoke—unseen, but suffocating—
a reminder that life gives, and it takes with equal cruelty.
Then came the loss that broke the core of me—
My father.
The man I admired the most.
A lighthouse of strength and wisdom,
who taught me what it meant to be a man,
to stand tall, to lead, to love.
And when he left, something in me folded inward—
a son with no compass, no guide.
I speak his name in the quiet,
hoping his soul still listens.
But nothing—nothing—prepared me for the loss of my son.
My only son.
My flesh. My future. My pride.
He was stolen from me by fate’s cruel hand,
and I stood there—helpless—as my heart was ripped from my chest.
Not metaphorically, but truthfully,
as though my soul cracked open and poured onto the floor
where no one could see it bleed.
I was left paralyzed—not in body, but in spirit—
a mind locked in a moment,
a father frozen in shock,
grasping for answers that never came,
for justice that never arrived.
All I wanted was one more day—
One more laugh.
One more look.
One more breath shared.
But I was denied that mercy.
People passed me, nodded kindly, offered words meant to comfort.
But how could they know?
How could they understand?
They had not watched their world collapse in a second.
They had not buried their child,
hearing the earth fall as if every sound landed on their own chest.
No, they did not feel what I felt.
They never will.
And so I walk on.
Not healed.
Not whole.
But alive, somehow—
Still searching for truth.
Still trying to carry the weight of grief
that has no name, no measure, no mercy.
You don’t know me.
You don’t know what I’ve survived.
What I’ve lost.
What I relive behind every closed eyelid.
I am not looking for pity, or for praise.
Just understanding—
That behind the eyes of Ala Salman is a story
written in sorrow, etched in love,
and sealed with the tears of a father
whose heart still beats—
Broken, but unbowed.
In Memory. In Pain. In Love.